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Just One Debt
February 6, 2000
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
Romans 13:8-14
The
text this morning was going to be from John 8. The story
was going to be about the woman accused of adultery and
brought before Jesus. The subject was going to be sexuality.
But it became very clear to me that was not for this morning.
Perhaps next week. For this morning, for reasons which
were not absolutely clear to me earlier in the week, we’re
going to read from Romans
13:8-14.
This
has been quite a week:
On
Monday, the Alaska Airlines plane bound for Seattle crashed
in the Pacific, killing everyone on board. Many on the
plane were from Seattle. Some were from Queen Anne Hill.
Two families had kids at John Hay school, just up the street.
Two of my kids go there, and many of yours. One family
lived just up the street here on Blaine. You walk by the
house, you see the toys in the backyard…but they
are gone. Just gone. This week on Queen Anne Hill, and
in many parts of our city, there has been a sort of hush
in the air…in the coffee shops, up at the school,
in the grocery store.
On
Tuesday, the father of one of our members had a slight
stroke over in Eastern Washington.
On
Wednesday, a popular biology teacher at Garfield High School,
where some of our high schoolers go, was found dead.
Last
weekend was the anniversary of Bethany high schooler Carrie
Mercure’s death…and this continues to be a
difficult time for many in our community.
Several
of our members and family have received discouraging medical
test results this week.
It’s
been quite a week.
It’s
the kind of week that makes you wonder just what is going
on. Perhaps it makes you wonder if God has any idea what
is going on. Maybe it makes you question whether God has
the strength or the desire to protect, to intervene. Maybe
it makes you cry out, or scream, or yell at God, “God,
where in the world are you?”
I
wrote in my journal this week that sometimes it “…seems
so random…sometimes it seems like all of life is
a big dartboard, and the darts get thrown with some regularity…and
whoever or whatever gets hit just sort of disappears. And
one of the darts landed just a block away. And then it
makes us all stop and ask, “Who’s throwing
the darts, and why?””
The “why?” of
course, is what we all want to know…why such pain?
Why OUR friends, why OUR neighbors, why OUR family, why
MY teacher? Why me? Why loss, anguish, separation, why,
God, why?
I’d
love to be able to stand here today and give you those
answers. I can’t. There are no easy answers, no simple
solutions. Sure I have some musings, some thoughts, some
hints. We could talk a little theology, we could talk about
pain in general, about death in general, about God’s
sovereignty in general. The problem is that these things
don’t happen to people in general. They happen to
somebody specific. Those were someBODY’s brothers
and moms and grandparents and friends of PEOPLE…of
ours.
Pain
is not general…it is specific. And so we cry out.
I
think it’s one of the reasons we come to worship… to
cry out…to look for God when we don’t necessarily
see Him, to cry out to God when we’re not sure He
hears. The prayer book of the Old Testament, the Psalms,
says things like this:
“How
long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts,
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God!”
This
comforts me, actually. We’re not required to put
on the game face, the stone smile, the good clothes and
come to God’s house and pretend that everything is
okay, and that we can sing songs extolling God’s
virtues…when we’re wondering if He is even
on duty. God can take our cries as well as our praises.
And like Job, we may not understand it all…yet still
we feel driven to be with God, even when we don’t
understand. Hard weeks can drive us into God’s presence…sometimes
even kicking and screaming.
It’s
been quite a week. Hard weeks like this do other things,
too, things Paul talks about here…one is: They can
drive us to each other. In far deeper ways, far more dependent
ways than we may ordinarily allow, we are driven to find
the human contact that in other times we insulate ourselves
from. In chapter 13 of Romans, Paul has been talking about
how to live out the relationship with God that he spent
the first 12 chapters explaining…how to live everyday
life…and just prior to where I read, he talked about
financial debt. And then here at verse 8, he hits at a
different kind of debt:
“Let
no debt remain outstanding, EXCEPT the continuing (ongoing,
into the future, it-doesn’t-go-away, you never pay
it up) debt to love one another.” That debt of love
is to be foremost in our minds. In the everyday, we forget
it, we insulate ourselves, we grow numb. But when we lose
someone we love, when we’re toppled over by tragedy,
we can be instantly thrown into the mode of love for those
around us. I’ve talked with many people this week
who have said about the plane crash, “It makes me
want to gather my family around me,” “it makes
me remember what is important.”
You
bet it does. It makes us aware of how the people around
us enrich our lives. It makes us more intentional, makes
us look people in the eye, makes us look at the cashier
at the store. It makes us think twice when we say good-bye.
We had a friend heading out of town on Thursday…she
stopped by Wednesday night “just to say good-bye.” That
wouldn’t have happened before this week, I don’t
think.
When
the dart hits close to home, we think about what’s
important, what’s REALLY important. Suddenly that
decision about where to go on vacation, or which school
the kids ought to go to next year, or how my brother should
call me because I always call him first. These things pale,
and we remember people, and the debt to love…
God
designed us to love. Paul says “Don’t owe…on
love. Don’t hold back, don’t get caught short,
be intentional, keep short accounts.” Love your neighbor.
Those around you. Those that the Lord intentionally brings
into our lives, and says to us, “Here…pay
your debt. Love.” When the dart hits close to home,
we think differently. A few years ago, a magazine called “Fast
Company” asked its readers “If you could have
one more hour per day at home OR a $10,000 per year raise,
which would you choose?” -- 83% said “the money.” Only
17% said the time at home. I don’t think the result
would be the same this week on Queen Anne…or in
a bunch of other places. Paul says, “Love…love
while you have this time.” Time is something else
Paul talks about here.
“Do
this, understanding the present time. The hour has come
for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation
is nearer now that when we first believed…the night
is nearly over, day is almost here.” We are called
to live our present…in the light of the future.
We live now…knowing that Christ will come again.
We live now…still surrounded by the pain of darkness,
but ALSO equipped by Jesus, the light-bringer. We live
the “now” grounded in the “soon,” clinging
to the places the light already breaks through, believing
that our story will not end when life on earth does, that
planes and strokes and catastrophes do not speak the last
word. Jesus does. But precisely because the future invades
the present…we need to be watchful. We can’t
afford to be drowsy, to slumber.
Paul
talks about drowsiness here as well. Physical drowsiness
is easy to picture. We’ve all experienced it in some
way, short-term or long-term. If you don’t take care
of your body…you get lethargic. If you overeat,
overdrink, undersleep…you get drowsy, soft, you
ask less of yourself, you fall asleep on the couch every
night. You miss out on things, feelings, sensations, opportunities.
This
was brought home to me last year. Anne and I often fast
from something during Lent, to help us focus on the Lord
leading us into Easter. Usually it’s sugar. Last
year, I got ridiculous. I fasted from sugar…then
I gave up meat (Anne’s a vegetarian, so I thought
I’d commiserate)…and I also quit eating chips…a
minor miracle on par with walking on water. We did it as
a Lenten spiritual discipline. But I was so amazed to find
that after about a week of just those eating changes…how
I felt physically. I felt like a new person. I felt alert,
less drowsy, more energy, more able to focus, more ready
to face the day.
Well,
Paul says there’s a spiritual drowsiness, too. Luther
called it the “spiritual sleep of indifference.” If
we dabble and indulge in things that are unhealthy…he
lists a few, like sexual immorality, and drunkenness and
jealousy…among other things…we start to get
drowsy. Spiritually drowsy. We slumber, we get numb to
God. Oh, we may still believe in God…but we miss
opportunities God presents to us. Like a chance to pay
on our debts…our debt to love others…to seize
the moment…who knows how many moments like this
we have? Karl Barth says “We live in the flux of
time…if we do not love within a succession of moments,
we love not at all.” Tragedy reminds us…to
live, and to love in the moment.
It’s
been quite a week, friends. There will be others like this
one in our lives. We will sometimes need people to walk
beside us. We will sometimes be called to walk beside other
people…who are numb not with slumber, but with pain.
We will run out of words to say, or refuse to say anything
because it would sound so trite. We will be left trying
to figure out how to connect people around us with God.
Sometimes in times like this I get caught in a trap of
feeling like I have to stick up for God, like He needs
a defense attorney. I’m a Christian, for goodness
sake, I need to have THE answer.
The
temptation is for me to run back and forth between God
and my neighbor, carrying messages, trying to communicate,
back and forth, back and forth…until I finally remember
that what needs to happen is for my neighbor to be in God’s
presence. So that he or she can bring the questions and
the longings and the fears directly to God. Perhaps my
place is just to pray that meeting into existence. Perhaps
it’s to take my neighbor’s hand and go there
with him. To let God be God. After all…
We
worship a God who understands what it is to feel pain.
We
worship a God who has grieved over the loss of a son.
We
worship a God who promises us…not that we’ll
understand everything…but that He will not abandon
us.
We
worship a God who somehow is able to use even the worst
of times…to bring growth.
We
worship a God who has declared in his Son, a God who
by the light of the approach of morning at an empty tomb… shows
that death and pain are not the last word. That there
is a hope that transcends the things of the night.
There
was a 19th century pastor who understood hope like this
hope in Christ. His name was John Todd, and he lost both
of his parents when he was just 6 years old. A kindhearted
aunt raised him, and sent him off to college. Years later,
she became ill, and in distress wrote Todd a letter asking…Is
death the end of everything, or could she hope for something
beyond? Here’s part of what Todd wrote back:
It
is now 35 years since I, as a boy of six, was left quite
alone in the world. You sent me word you would give me
a home and be a kind mother to me. I have never forgotten
the day I made the long journey to your house. I can
still recall my disappointment when, instead of coming
for me yourself, you sent your servant, Caesar, to fetch
me.
I
remember the tears and the anxiety as, perched high on
your horse and clinging tight to Caesar, I rode off to
my new home. Night fell before we finished the journey,
and I became lonely and afraid. "Do you think she’ll
go to bed before we get there?" I asked Caesar.
“Oh
no!” he said reassuringly, “She’ll
stay up for you. When we get out of these here woods,
you’ll see her candle shinin’ in the window.”
Presently
we did ride out into the clearing, and there, sure enough,
was your candle. I remember you were waiting at the door,
that you put your arms close around me—a tired
and bewildered little boy. You had a fire burning on
the hearth, a hot supper waiting on the stove. After
supper you took me to my new room, heard me say my prayers,
and then sat beside me till I fell asleep.
Some
day soon God will send for you, Auntie, to take you to
a new home. Don’t fear the summons, the strange
journey, or the messenger of death. God can be trusted
to do as much for you as you were kind enough to do for
me so many years ago. At the end of the road you will
find love and a welcome awaiting, and you will be safe
in God’s care.
It’s
been quite a week. May God walk with us as we live out
that hope, remembering our debt of love…in the moments
of the week ahead.
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